


Lost In A World He Didn't Ask For

by nyanbacon



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Dead April, Dystopian Future, Emotional, Hints of Apritello, Human, Rebellion, Rebellion Leader Leo, Robot Mikey, Royal Scientist, Scientist Donnie, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-06 11:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanbacon/pseuds/nyanbacon
Summary: Donatello works for the Empire as royal scientist, and is ready to boot up his most taxing invention, Project Michelangelo.





	1. /run

Donatello Hamato was a hard worker. For all his life, he’d had a good work ethic and had never slacked on any project. Even when he was little, he wouldn’t abandon a project until he saw it through to the end. He made a myriad of drones and software programs that his family used and took joy in.

Now, the only people who even gave his work a second glance was the Empire. 

Which wasn’t necessarily a problem. Sure, what they expected from him was a long list of things, and annoying as all hell to work with, but it was still more than what he’d get from anyone else. 

He sighed as he stepped away from his current project, pushing the goggles pressing painfully into his face up and away from his eyes. He ran his gloved fingers over the marks they left, before setting aside the goggles, gloves and soldering gun. He was careful to make sure to not set them on the stack of metal bits resting on the edge of the desk. He wandered out of the room into the kitchen to grab a fresh water bottle from the fridge, before walking back to the doorway and inspecting his work. 

Lately, the Empire had become less demanding, willing to work with the blueprints and prototypes for weapons he’d offered them. Instead of asking him for more inventions, they settled with mass producing the ones he was able to provide them with in the past. It was… nice. As nice as working his ass off for someone else could be. He’d gotten tired of being given lists of stuff to satisfy and a time limit. It was exhausting.

Now, though, now with the rebellion at a lull, and the Empire in less need of new weapons as they recollected themselves, Donnie had time.

A lot of time.

It hadn’t taken long for the scientist to go to the higher ups to ask for the funding for a new project- Project Michelangelo. 

_ Project Michelangelo _ , he’d said when asked to tell them a bit about the project,  _ is going to be a programmable weapons hub, designed to hold a wide variety weapons and even serve as a weapon itself.  _

The project came with a lot of risk. The odds of being able to create such a thing were somewhat slim- and would have been impossible, if it hadn’t been Donatello working on the project. A lot of money went into it, and it was entirely possible that nothing would come out of it.

Despite listing these concerns, the Empire seemed happy to give them the money. He still couldn’t quite figure out why- human behaviors had never been his strong suit. Maybe it had something to do with his reputation, or simply because he was reliable. So far, he’d done everything the Empire expected, and more. 

He’d settled on the idea that he was  _ very  _ well liked, and left it at that. 

Project Michelangelo had been his longest, and most taxing project. Not only had it taken a lot of money, but it’d taken lots of time and lots of energy.

Donnie wasn’t sure he remembered the last time he’d gotten a good amount of sleep. 

Now, though… now, the payoff was immense. He stood by the metal table he’d spent hours upon hours hunched over in the past few months, inspecting his work.

Laid out on the table was a very human looking robot. The joints and face were covered in a rubbery, skin like substance to allow for movement, while the rest was a thin but durable plastic. The outer protection was skin colored, a bit tanner than Donnie’s own pale skin. Small red circuits glued to the inside of the cheeks on its face were visible through the ‘skin’, resembling freckles. A wig of straw blonde hair was attached to the top of its head, to make it seem more human (if he was going to go to the extent of giving it skin, why not go all the way?)

The body concealed more of the workings. Designed to protect the delicate structures of the inside, certain areas were thicker than others to allow for the ability to take higher powered explosions and hits. However, that wasn’t what Donnie was proud of.

Personally, Donnie found the inner workings to be the most impressive part of the project, and the part he took the most pride in. The energy cores resided in the chest in the form of two boxes. They were self sustaining, so the robot wouldn’t need to charge once it was turned on. It had a basic skeleton that was more designed for movement and holding up everything else.

What was the everything else? Well… everything else was the mass amount of weapon systems the small robot body was able to conceal. 

Energy blasters were compactly folded up in the shoulder blades and along the back, and would be able to come out once small doors opened up in the back. Similar blasters were installed in the palm, which had a variety of functions- stun, kill, etcetera. 

A small USB port in the nape of its neck led to the processors and storage in the head. The head was the most intricate, delicate part of the robot (if Donnie were honest with himself, he wished he could’ve structured the robot in a way that didn’t so closely resemble the human body, but it had seemed the most logical, and honestly, storing all the delicate stuff in the head was the best way to keep it safe).

Now, after months of work, he stood beside the robot, growing giddy with excitement. This was the moment of truth. This was when he would see if all the funding and time was worth it. Would it work? He wasn’t sure.

Oh  _ god _ , he hoped it did. 

He plugged a cord into the neck port and attached it to his computer. It brought up the main terminal that served as the primary hub for all the functions. His hands were shaking a bit as he set aside his water bottle and positioned his hands over the keyboard to type in the function ‘/run’.

His finger hovered over the enter button, and he glanced at the robot. For a split second, he hesitated. Maybe he should wait until tomorrow. He wasn’t sure what would happen, if he would end up spending hours fixing bugs instead of sleeping.

But he knew he wouldn’t even be able to sleep without this breakthrough hovering over his head.

He hit the enter button and bolted back over to the side of the table, staring at the robot with bated breath. It took a few moments, but after a painful few seconds, Donnie could hear the batteries in its chest whir to life. It clenched and unclenched its hands, and then opened its eyes.

The bright blue metal adjusted the size of the lenses, before it turned its head just enough to look at Donnie.

“Good evening, Donatello,” it spoke, and its almost-human-but-not-quite voice brought Donnie so much relief he nearly collapsed right there to cry out of sheer joy. 


	2. /test

The first tests went  _ magnificently _ .

If Donnie had to be honest with himself, he hadn’t expected the project to go so well right off the bat. He’d expected some hiccup, some math mistake, some  _ something _ , but no.

He had a well crafted robot prototype standing right in front of him.

“Just goes to show you,” he murmured to himself as he ran his first diagnostic test. “Sometimes you can impress yourself.”

The robot didn’t answer. Donnie didn’t expect it to. Why would it? He programmed it to only respond to the name ‘Michelangelo’, nor did it have the ability to make small talk. 

He watched his computer screen as it spat back statistics. He wasn’t expecting them to be great, but they were still better than he had anticipated.

The code seemed to be running well, well enough to take in information and spit back out. The processors weren’t running as quickly as Donnie might have liked, but the robot was still taking in and storing all information, regardless of if it was taking a few seconds to register and be filed away. Sound inputs and image receptors were running decently otherwise. There was loads of space left in the computer, meaning it had plenty of room to store the information and more programs Donnie was planning. 

The battery was running fine, but Donnie wasn’t too worried about that as of yet. That was a statistic that would be taken into account in later tests. He opened a side drawer and pulled out a tablet, walking back over to where the robot was standing motionless at the end of the table. 

“Michelangelo,” he called, and the lenses in the robot’s eyes grew before shrinking and it lifted its head just enough to look who had called him in the eye.

To say Donnie was giddy was an understatement.

“Raise your right arm ninety degrees.”

The robot followed the order and Donnie came around its side to measure the angle. Exactly ninety degrees. He grinned. “Lower your right arm.” It did. The sound of metal moving from within was almost inaudible, a trick Donnie had learned from a previous invention. “Raise your left arm ninety degrees.” It followed, and he measured. He wasn’t all too worried about the measurements, but it was more of a requirement. He knew there was someone up in a council somewhere who’d have his head if everything wasn’t perfect.

“Lower your left arm.” The robot returned to an attentive position as he walked around to stand in front of it, smiling. 

Project Michelangelo was, if he was allowed to say it, perfect.

 

After taking a few weeks to ensure the diagnostic tests consistently came back adequate, and Donnie was able to fix the few second lag in the information collection,  Project Michelangelo was ready to move onto a more complicated test, besides just moving its arms up and down. He had to brush off the keypad to the testing field, it’d been so long since he’d opened the door. It slid open easily, though, revealing a large room. He flipped on the lights and they came on in stages- first the ones closest to the door, then the middle ones, then the ones farthest away, lighting up every corner of the room.

“Michelangelo, go stand in the middle of the room,” Donnie ordered, stepping out of the way so the robot could stand in the center of the room. He frowned a moment, noting how unnerving it was to see a human like object moving around without any clothing, and made a mental note to amend that sooner or later. Then, he stepped into a walled off control room.

He stuck a flash drive into a USB port on the dashboard and booted up a simple training program he’d coded the night previous before going to bed. The program was basic- a desert with no obstructions, littered with unarmed rebel soldiers. Obviously, it was an easy win for the robot.

The walls and floor flickered to life with the terrain. Physical holographs were a thing of the past, but it made it easier to test things without having to go out in the field.

The robot reacted immediately upon sensing the presence of the rebel soldiers. Moving almost like a person, but too fast and too fluid to be one, it took a step out of range from a soldier running at it and kicked the soldier in the stomach before blasting its head off with a hand blaster. Another soldier jumped up behind him but a panel opened and shot the soldier out of the sky. It whipped around and shot two more blasts, one from each hand, at a third soldier running at it from the side.

Donnie watched with bright eyes. The movements were immaculately executed, perfect down to the degree and required no adjustment. The robot knew exactly how to defend itself.

Eventually it returned back to its resting position, and the program flickered out of view, leaving the barren room. The robot had hardly moved a few inches from its spot.

Donnie saved the footage feed and exported it to the flash drive before ejecting it and moving out of the control room. “Michelangelo, return to your table.”

The robot turned and walked back to the metal table, laying down on it and staring at the ceiling with its blank blue eyes. Donnie followed, shutting the lights off and letting the door slide shut behind him. He put the flash drive into his computer and moved the video footage into a dropbox shared with someone above him. There were a few other files in the dropbox, including the first five diagnostics tests and footage of Project Michelangelo’s first movement tests.

He chewed on his lip a bit nervously when he noticed that none of the flies had comments on them yet. He couldn’t be sure if they'd been seen yet or not without telling him outright.  _ Whatever, _ he thought to himself.  _ They’re probably just busy. _

He exited out of the drop box and turned back to Project Michelangelo. It lay still and unmoving on the table, plastic parts shining a bit under the light that was cast on it.

Donnie frowned and pushed down the unnerved feeling rising in his chest, shutting off the spotlight glaring down at the robot and placing his finger over the light switch that would turn out all the lights. “Michelangelo, go into sleep mode.”

The robot closed its eyes, and Donnie could’ve sworn it visibly relaxed. Maybe he was just seeing things. He  _ hoped  _ he was just seeing things.

He looked away and flicked the lights off.

 

Donnie was sluggish and tired the next morning, and moved from his room to the kitchen without going to the lab to check on Project Michelangelo. It didn’t occur to him he might’ve been overworking himself until then, and glanced at a clock. Not that it helped- if he really wanted to know how much he’d slept, he should’ve recorded the time before he’d gone to bed.

Waiting for the fresh pot of coffee to brew felt like the longest few minutes of his life, and he bent over the counter, laying his head on his arms tiredly as he listened to the pot buzz softly. It beeped softly to notify him the pot was full, and he picked it up to pour it into a fresh mug.

“Gooood morning, Donatello!” Came a metallic human voice from the doorway, and Donnie dropped the coffee pot.


	3. /debug

Project Michelangelo sat on the metal table, swinging its legs in wide eyed interest as Donnie scowled at his computer. The noise of the robot’s continuously swinging legs was grating and he was going to lose his mind if it didn’t stop.

“I don’t get it,” he said, voice laced with annoyance. He’d been sitting at his computer for almost an hour now, scouring files for the bug- or file, or _whatever_ was making his project act like this- but he couldn’t find it.

“Get what.”

Donnie jumped and whipped around to see its bright blue lenses staring at him, head tilted slightly to the side. Goosebumps trailed over his skin. It was too uncanny, too unnatural, too…

Too human.

He scowled and turned back to his computer, away from the robot. He hadn’t asked for a response. He wasn’t even _looking_ for a response. It was just a machine- a machine _he_ made, for God’s sake! He should know what it was doing, why it was acting this way, how to _fix_ it.

“Did I do something wrong?” It asked. Its voice sounded genuine, sorrowful, like a kid who was getting yelled at. If it had tear ducts, Donnie could’ve sworn it would’ve been crying.

“Yes, you did something wrong,” Donnie snapped, and the robot flinched. He scowled, trying to mask the swelling pang of… well, he wasn’t sure, but it kind of hurt. He wasn’t accustomed to this level of social interaction anymore- five years of isolation had changed him, as it would any man. The fact this prototype, this _mistake_ , even, was making him _feel_ things was starting to piss him off.

He avoided looking at the robot. “You messed up your coding, and I can’t figure out how to fix it!”

The robot giggled. Donnie grimaced. It sounded so real, yet there was the subtle underlying metallic noise that made it the smallest bit tinny and electronic. To Donnie, it felt like nails on a chalkboard (not that he was sure what that sounded like, but this was probably pretty close). “Well of course I didn’t make it easy to fix, silly. You’d undo all my hard work.”

What exactly he said took a minute to set in, but when it did, Donnie’s blood ran cold. “You… _made_ the program?”

He refused to look at the robot, but he could feel it staring at his back. “Obviously…?” It sounded confused. _How could it sound confused?_ “It’s not like you just… coded a sentience into me. You… didn’t think that was the case, did you?”

Donnie scoffed. He had considered that, but he wasn’t about to let it know that. He sometimes woke up some mornings at his computer with parts of projects done but no recollection that he’d done it. “No, I would’ve remembered that.”

“... right,” the bot said skeptically. He could hear it moving. It was faint, almost unnoticeable, but he noticed it.

It was a painful reminder that Donnie had done something _wrong._

“It’s in this folder,” it said, almost right in Donnie’s ear, as it reached across and pointed at a folder on Donnie’s screen.

Project Michelangelo’s head acted like a computer. When it was plugged in, a second desktop screen would open with all the function files accessed by the primary program, ‘project:Michelangelo’. The desktop window was cluttered with folders of various names. The one it had pointed to was misleadingly labeled ‘memory2’.

“Memory… two,” Donnie said scathingly. It was such a painfully obvious hint that it wasn’t supposed to be there, but Donnie was _so obscenely angry_ that it hadn’t occurred to him to look so closely at the folder names.

“Uh huh.” The robot clasped its hands behind its back innocently as Donnie turned his head to glare at him. “Well?” It asked expectantly, tilting its head forward in gesture to the folder. “Click it.”

Donnie scowled. For a moment, he considers not clicking the folder, just to spite it. He could throw the folder away and be done with it- but if the robot was smart enough to do this, to work _around_ Donnie’s coding, it was probably smart enough to make a backup of the folder.

God. _Dammit._

He moved the mouse over the folded and double clicked it, expecting to see a group of files.

Instead, what he saw was a password pop up.

Make a backup for the folder… or password protect it to ensure he wouldn’t mess with it.

In that moment, something inside Donnie broke. It was a new sensation, because it didn’t cause a flood of anger like it did usually. No, it was just… numbness. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to curl up on his bed and cry. Or scream. Or sleep. He wasn’t quite sure.

He knew cracking the password wasn’t even an option. It was impossible. A _computer_ had made the password. _Maybe not impossible,_ he thought dejectedly. _But it would take_ years _._

“Project Michelangelo, go into sleep mode,” he said, voice void of emotion. He needed some time to himself, alone. Without this cursed robot patronizing him. He’d accidentally made an artificial intelligence, yet he couldn’t un-code it? What kind of a genius was he?

The robot didn’t budge.

“Project Michelangelo,” he repeated more sternly, getting to his feet and turning so he could tower over the small robot. “Go into sleep mode.”

The robot took two steps back, raising its hands in surrender and a frail smile- a weak smile, an apologetic smile, an _insincere_ smile. “Sorry, Donnie.” The scientist growled at the nickname. Where had he learned that?. “I’m afraid your commands aren’t going through.”

The emotion behind it ruined the effect, but still made Donnie nearly blind with anger.

Donnie seethed and turned away, storming towards his room. He paused in the doorway to the lab and turned to glare at the robot. “ _Don’t._ Call me Donnie.”

He flicked the lights out, leaving his computer screen and Project Michelangelo’s glowing blue eyes as the only light sources in the room.


	4. /calculate

Donnie had never taken failure very easily. Maybe because he rarely ever failed.

This, he assumed, was why he was taking this so hard. 

It wasn’t that failure was the end of the world, but..

Okay. Yeah. To him, it kind of was.

So much funding had gone into this project, so many things had been hanging in the balance, and just when he thought he got it right, it all fell apart in his hands. This gut-wrenching feeling he felt… it was indescribable. 

He hated it.

He’d always been quite opinionated, but he hated this feeling more than he hated anything else. It was hard enough to think about the fact he’d screwed up royally, he didn’t need these stupid emotions reminding him he was an absolute failure.

But…  _ why _ was he a failure? Why was this project so different from the others? What set it apart? What had made it go haywire in such a way that it physically felt different? Sure, inventions had gone nuts before, but nothing like  _ this. _

Maybe…

Maybe it simply was because Michelangelo  _ was _ different.

That had to be a part of it, he knew. That was the biggest thing that set it apart from other, state of the art weapons. It had programming- extensive files of chunks of text that made it more intelligent, even without the new programs it had created for itself. It took the shape of a human, not a gun, like everything else did. It was  _ different _ .

But that wasn’t all there was to it. With it being so complicated, so out of the ordinary, he should feel proud it had gone as well as it had. All those tests…

No, there was something else. Donnie just couldn’t place his finger on it.

 

He woke up after not realizing he’d fallen asleep to smell something… delicious, to say the least. He wasn’t sure the last time he’d eaten properly was- or, ingested anything that  _ wasn’t _ coffee- so his mouth watered as he sat up a bit, wondering if it was worth getting out of bed to investigate what it was.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to go very far.

On the nightstand was a plate with a metal bowl placed over it- probably to keep it warm. Taped to the bowl was a note. Donnie frowned and rubbed the last bit of sleep from his eyes before reaching over and pulling the note off with a flick of his wrist. 

 

_ I thought you might be hungry, considering how long you’ve been cooped up in here. I made you some food. I hope you enjoy!  _

 

_ -Mikey _

 

Mikey. So that’s what it was calling itself now. Donnie scowled and crumpled the note up in his hand. He threw it onto the floor and lifted the bowl off the plate, expecting it to be some sort of joke. 

Instead, what he found was chicken stir fry piled on top of some rice.

He blinked and slowly pulled the plate onto his lap, staring at it. He hadn’t yet tasted it, but just the smell was overwhelmingly good.

When the hell had he taught the robot to cook?

For the moment, though, he threw those concerns out the window, focusing on eating. As he did, it occurred to him how hungry he was, and once the plate was empty, he considered getting more, but realized that’d be admitting defeat to the robot.

Would the robot even be aware of it? Would it care? Probably. It was smart enough to do that. Smarter than…

Donnie froze. 

_ The goddamn robot was smarter than him. _

Things started clicking into place in Donnie’s head. He felt like such a massive failure because he’d created something wonderful that had one-upped him. He couldn't look at it- refused to, even- because just its existence gave Donnie a massive feeling of inferiority.

For a brief moment, searing anger coarsed through Donnie’s veins and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to supress the urge to tear Michelangelo down and completely remake him- without intelligence, without flaws,  _ perfect _ , like he wanted.

But the anger left him and he fell back onto his pillow, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes with a choked sigh. He couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair. Not to himself…. Hell, not even to the robot (god, he couldn’t believe he even  _ thought _ that).

He dropped his arms back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment. He wasn’t sure what to do. He could just die in here, and never have to face the helpless feeling of inferiority Michelangelo gave him. Or he could go out and confront it head on. But how would he do that? Would he…

He sighed and rolled onto his side, staring at a picture frame resting on his nightstand. For a moment, all he saw was his reflection in the glass, but he adjusted his eyes to instead focus on the figure in the frame.

She looked back at him with two blue eyes, contrasting with the red hair that fell around her shoulders. He reached out and picked up the picture frame, holding it close to his chest.

“What am I supposed to do, April?” He spoke to the air, as if she was still there. “I can’t call the project off because of my pride but… I don’t know if I can continue.”

Despite knowing she was gone, that she wasn’t still there with him, some part of him expected a response, and ached horribly when he didn’t get one. He curled up around the picture frame, biting back tears.

He was becoming less and less sure that he could get through this without completely falling apart.

 

The next time he woke up, he had a horrible crick in his neck, and his whole body was sore from laying so tightly curled up around April’s picture. While the soreness was nothing new, it ticked him off, and he sat up quickly, resting the picture frame face down on the nightstand. He stretched his arms up over his head and glanced around the room. The dishes were gone, as was the crumpled up note.

_ Bastard robot _ , he thought with a deep set scowl. He was getting sick of it showing him up. He kicked the sheet off from where it was tangled between his legs and rolled off the bed, pulling on a fresh change of clothes.

It was a new day, and Donnie wasn’t about to let some stupid-ass artificial intelligence keep him from getting stuff done. 


	5. /reprogram

“What? Why?”

“Because it was what you were designed to do. You don’t have a say in this.”

Once dragging himself out of bed, Donnie found it much easier to do things. He wasn't quite sure why. He had a couple hunches, of course, but in the end, it boiled down to working out of anger that Michenangelo hadn’t worked out as he wanted, or some part of him spiting the other part of him that thought he wasn’t good enough.

Lord be  _ damned _ if he wasn’t good enough. He was going to get through this project, and it was going to be  _ perfect _ . Just as he’d imagined it for all those sleepless months he’d spent working on it. 

Only problem was… Michelangelo had a mind of its own, which made doing anything significantly harder. It fidgeted whenever Donnie was doing program upgrades, and refused to even step near the training area.

If Donnie didn’t know any better, he might even say the robot was  _ afraid,  _ despite being easily equipped for the training programs. Not only that, but Donnie wouldn’t let it sustain too much damage. This was his prized invention, after all. He couldn’t let it be damaged beyond repair. 

Michelangelo stared at Donnie with wide eyes as the scientist forced it to edge closer and closer to the door to the training facility. “You can’t just-”

“I can’t what. Tell you what to do? Why not? Give me a reason I shouldn’t tell you what to do.” It was silent and Donnie sneered. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Get in there, or I’m giving you a harder program to work in.”

It turned and scrambled for the door with human clumsiness. Donnie twisted his face into a look of disgust as he watched it.

It had taken some of Donnie’s clothes while he’d been asleep, and now donned a pair of denim shorts and an orange shirt. Donnie didn’t particularly mind- he’d grown out of them years ago, hence why they were able to fit the robot’s small build- but it was… unnerving.

Some part of him wanted him to refer to the robot as ‘him’ instead of ‘it’ once noticing the appearance change.

This in and of itself was a terrifying thought to Donnie.

He scowled and booted up one of the harder ‘easy’ training programs. This one took place in a run down city, which had been constructed based around one of the cities the Rebellion had demolished. The buildings were structurally unsound, and with enough force, would crumble. In this program, the rebel fighters Michelangelo was facing were armed, set in various places around the map.

Donnie turned on several cameras positioned about the area so he could monitor its movement and progress. 

Michelangelo, upon scanning the area, was able to tell that most of the area was volatile and dangerous to cause too much of a stir up in. Thus, it was careful in skirting buildings and looking for the enemy. Donnie was surprised to notice it still managed to move immaculately- it took in all the information around it and adjusted to it. It didn’t move clumsily like he expected it to with its new coding. 

A soldier shot at it and it quickly dodged to the side, turning and shooting the sniper out of the window in a building with one of his palm blasters. The body fell down to the ground and the robot winced. Donnie frowned.

It turned and started to run nearly silently down one of the streets before taking a left, closer to the observation bay, and closer to a cluster of soldiers. Straight towards the danger.

Donnie’s frown deepened. He could’ve sworn he programmed it to be more careful than that, but maybe it’d programmed a self sacrificing martyr complex into it. He’d have to look into that.

Michelangelo quickly ducked behind a road block when he was showered with a rain of lasers. He leaned his head back and pressed his hands against the floor, taking a scan of the area. Probably. Donnie assumed that’s what he was doing.

After a moment he popped up from behind the roadblock and shot a two charged blasts at the building directly to his left, right at the two corners facing the courtyard the soldiers were scattered around. The building leaned, and there was a loud screeching of tearing metal as the ruined building keeled over and crushed the soldiers coming towards the roadblock. Michelangelo quickly bolted out from behind the roadblock and skirted the new rubble, disappearing into the rising cloud of dust and confusing the soldiers still standing in the windows of the surrounding buildings. 

Donnie watched, grinning like a kid at the most exciting part of an action movie. Michelangelo was a  _ genius _ .

He quickly ran up to the top of the rubble and made a circle, shooting the soldiers out of the windows. Their bodies slumped over the sills or sometimes fell to the ground. A guilty look flickered across his face before a gunshot from across the clearing whizzed past his ear.

He whipped around to face the small group of soldiers that had turned up from around the map. Michelangelo scowled and a small version of a blaster canon sprouted from a panel in his back and rested on his shoulder to charge up before launching sizeable energy blast at the crowd. The force caused the robot to skid down the back of the rubble pile and a pair of boosters ejected from the back of his shins, keeping him up in the air just enough to land safely on the ground. The energy blast took root in the ground between them and shrank before exploding in a bright flash of light, nearly vaporizing each soldier it came in contact with. 

Unfortunately, the blast knocked the closest buildings loose, and they started to crumble, one right after another. Michelangelo’s eyes widened in alarm and he turned, bolting down one of the streets, away from the crumbling ruins.

Donnie rolled his eyes and quickly shut off the program, leaving the robot standing in the middle of the training room. He paused, looking around, before looking back at the observation deck.

Donnie flicked on a microphone. “You did good. You could’ve tried to keep from destroying the entire city in the process, but you completed the training session. And in a good amount of time.”

He looked a bit embarrassed when Donnie mentioned the whole ‘destroying the entire city’, but beamed at the praise. Something inside Donnie flooded with warmth and he shut off the microphone, rubbing his face. 

Why the  _ hell _ did he feel proud of this robot? It was supposed to be able to just  _ do  _ this, no questions asked.

Something about seeing him- about seeing  _ it _ happy to receive praise…

God, he was going soft. 


	6. /recall

“I’m sorry about the shirt.”

“I’m more worried about the damage you caused to the city.”

“... I’m sorry for doing my job.”

Donnie hadn’t laughed that hard in years. 

 

Mikey had a knack for making Donnie forget he was a robot. He acted so much like a human, the lines started blurring together, and Donnie would forget that it wasn’t normal for booster jets to live in the back of people's calves, or that Mikey couldn’t actually go take a shower like Donnie sometimes accidentally told him to do. MIkey was just… good at tricking him.

At first, it was small little details, like the fact Mikey was more comfortable wearing some old clothes Donnie hadn’t taken the time to dispose of than run around with anything on, even though Donnie told him countless times that it would hinder his functionality. Mikey simply wouldn’t listen. Donnie had to give him kudos for sticking to his virtues, too- despite every shirt Mikey tore during training, he persisted in his goal to have some decency, and even resorted mending shirts with calculated precision when he ran out of new ones to wear. 

Then, it was the things Mikey would do without prompting. It became a habit for Donnie to wake up from wherever he’d fallen asleep to find a plate of food next to him- typically still warm. And after eating and going into the kitchen, he’d find Mikey doing the dishes, with leftovers in the fridge Donnie had hardly ever used. 

“I didn’t even know I had all this food,” Donnie said one morning as he inspected the fridge with a frown. Various different ingredients were stacked in an organized fashion inside, and he wondered how Mikey managed to even make dishes with half this stuff.

“I had to clean it out considerably when I started,” he stated, looking up from the plate he was cleaning. “So much stuff had expired and started growing  _ to _ the shelves.”

Donnie wrinkled his nose and shut the doors. “Disgusting.”

Even his mannerisms made him seem more human than robot, and Donnie wanted so desperately to pick apart the coding that made him behave that like. 

If Donnie tried to make him sit still, he would fidget and couldn’t keep himself from moving, and when Donnie left him to his own devices, he was bouncing off the walls with boundless energy. He had a habit of not shutting up whenever Donnie got him talking- it didn’t matter what it was, either. If he knew enough about it to hold a conversation, he  _ was _ the conversation.

“Who was your muse?” Donnie asked at one point while Mikey was drawing something on Donnie’s tablet.

“Huh?” Mikey looked up at him, blinking. “What’s a muse.”

Donnie frowned at him as he tapped his fingers on the side of his coffee mug. “What inspired you to code yourself the way you did.”

Mikey stared at him before looking down and flipping the tablet around so he could continue drawing at a different angle. “I just didn’t want to be as boring as you are.”

“Excuse me?!”

The robot laughed and Donnie narrowed his eyes into a glare. “No offense, D, but you’re a bit of a Downer when it comes to… anything. With a capital D.”

“Give me an example.”

“Well, for days after I became conscious, you hid away in your room and did nothing. And before that, you kinda talked to yourself, and you wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary. You know, like a little Empire pet or something.”

Donnie’s blood chilled in his veins at how he said that, and he gripped his mug a little tighter. “Yeah?” He asked in a shaking voice.

He nodded, focusing on the tablet. “So I coded myself to be the opposite of you. More… outgoing. Loud. Not so straight minded. Like, yeesh, could you be  _ any _ more boring? I’ve gotta combat that somehow, or else I might just shut down from boredom.”

Donnie forced out a short laugh and looked down at his coffee, suddenly not feeling like he could stomach drinking the rest. Did Mikey really hate the Empire? Had he accidentally created the weapon that would lead to the Empire’s demise? Oh god, he would be killed for this  _ for sure- _

He didn’t have too much time to dwell on it though, because at that moment, Mikey set the tablet on the table, facing Donnie. “Who’s this?”

Donnie looked at the tablet and froze at the picture Mikey had pulled up. For a moment, something flashed across Donnie’s vision, something warm and loving, before it melted to hot, and sticky, and  _ hateful _ and-

Donnie quickly snatched the tablet up and stood up, clutching it to his chest and scowling at Mikey. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The robot stared up at him. “I didn’t-”

He took a step forward threateningly and Mikey scrambled back, off of the chair and away from the angry scientist. “I trust you with a tablet to goof off, and you go looking through my private stuff?!”

“Please don’t-”

“What the hell made you think that was okay?”

Mikey stared at him and didn’t answer, visibly shaking. The anger in Donnie’s chest didn’t subside, but instead turned from a burning need for vengeance to a dull, aching yearning for… something. For what, he didn’t know. 

He pulled the tablet away from his chest carefully and looked back down at the picture, running his eyes over the achingly familiar faces.

Donnie was still young, innocent, in the midst of puberty. Even though he was the youngest, he still towered over his brothers and had to bend down to be on eye level with the rest of the people in the picture. 

His chest twisted something awful as he stared at the cool blue gaze and piercing bright green glare that looked right at the camera as the picture was taken. It felt like they were here again, glaring at him, judging him, telling him this was a  _ bad idea _ -

And yet, their arms were wrapped deceivingly around a certain ginger’s shoulders. He saw red, a brighter red than April’s hair, and it wasn’t until he’d swung the tablet and broken it over Mikey’s head that he was too angry to stay here, close to someone he could hurt.

Ignoring the way Mikey collapsed on the floor, Donnie stormed through the shattered glass left on the kitchen floor and back into his room, slamming the door behind him like some angry teenager.

Who did Mikey think he was? He was just a robot, for God’s sake! He was in no position to go snooping through Donnie’s personal files. 

He stood in the middle of his barren room, glaring at the floor as tears welled in his eyes. He pressed the heels of his palms against them and slowly sank to the floor, sobbing softly.

He’d spent years trying to push away thoughts of his family- his brothers, his friends, everything he used to care about. Why did that damned robot have to bring back those memories?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to hit at least 1,000 words a chapter is harder than it looks.


	7. /error

Donnie opened his eyes to find an empty spot on the bed next to him, void of anything except the few bits of warmth left by the last human who laid there. He smiled to himself as he ran his hand over the mattress carefully, feeling how it dipped to cradle the person who slept there, before sitting up and stretching. Kicking the sheet off, he tumbled out of bed and headed off down the hall towards the kitchen.

April stood at the stove, the sizzling sound of hot breakfast masking Donnie’s footsteps as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She jumped under his touch and tried to whip around, holding a spatula coated in eggs threateningly before relaxing when she saw it was just him.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she scolded, tapping his cheek lightly with the hot eggs. 

He snorted and wiped his face on the back of his hand, grinning. “Sorry, April.” He loosened his grip on her so she could turn back to the food, and he watched over her shoulder. “You didn’t have to get up and make breakfast, you know.”

“I know,” she agreed as she peppered the eggs delicately. “But Lord knows you wouldn’t have eaten if I didn’t make you.”

“So, what, you’re gonna force feed me?”

“You doubt that I will?” She asked, turning her head to look at him almost threateningly.

He backed up a step, raising his hands in surrender good-naturedly. “I’ll eat it, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, you better.” She pointed the spatula at him again and he took another step back, grinning.

“I’ll be in the lab when you need me.”

She turned to frown at him, but he didn’t notice the look, instead heading into the lab and over to his computer without another word.

He picked up his tablet and took a moment to scroll through his messages, before deciding none of them were of particular interest and setting the tablet back on the table. He booted up his computer and rifled through some files in search of what he’d last been working on, before a small alarm popped up in the corner of his screen. He opened it up to see a camera catching movement coming towards his lab.

His lab (and extended living spaces) had one access point set within the main capital building, and it took several levels of clearance, with checkpoints set up periodically along a hallway.

He frowned. No one had scheduled a meeting with him, but according to the ID, it was one of his higher ups- he wasn’t sure of the name, but they had access to his lab, so it must’ve been someone important. 

He unlocked the last of the checkpoints to his lab and took a step away from his computer, turning to go let April know they would be having company.

Before the door was suddenly blown to pieces and he whipped around to see a small group of soldiers standing in front of him, each one with an energy pistol aimed at him. 

He swore he recognized some of the faces from their own army, when he was scrolling through the electronic copies of everyone in the ranks, but they were in rebel uniforms, so it was impossible to-

He sucked in a sharp breath of alarm when one of the guns went off and he quickly ducked, throwing his arms over his head. Strangely enough, the impact never came.

Instead, he heard the sound of something thumping on the floor, and he whipped around to see April had been shot clean through the forehead.

“No!” He cried hoarsely and turned on his heel, running to her side and picking her up so he could cradle her in his arms. She was still holding the egg coated spatula, and he could smell something burning on the stove, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Her skin was still warm under his touch, like she was still alive, but her eyes were glazed over, and blood and some disgusting oozed out of the hole in her forehead.

“April,” he wheezed, voice hoarse as he reached up to press his fingers to the side of her neck. It was futile, though, he knew. He knew there was no saving her from this.

He turned to look at the rebel soldiers, but they were gone. Well, almost all of them. One was giving him a piercing look, almost a guilty one, and that face-

That was a face he recognized.

But then it was gone, and he looked down at April’s body, taking hold of her left hand and rubbing her engagement ring between his index finger and his thumb.

“... I’m sorry,” he whispered, tightening his grip on her body. “I should’ve… this is all my fault.”

 

\--

Donnie opened his eyes only to be met with a dark room. He lay right in the middle of the bed, eliminating the extra space he would’ve had on the queen size bed. He stared up at the ceiling, feeling tears roll down his cheeks and dry stiff on his skin.

He turned his head to look at the picture of April he kept on his nightstand, and paused when he saw food. It appeared to be some sort of beef stew, upon sitting up and looking at it closely. He pulled it into his lap and stared at it before tasting it.

_ Hm _ , he thought.  _ Tastes like pepper. _

He pushed away the images that rose at the thought of pepper as he finished the stew. He’d tell Mikey he didn’t like pepper later.

He paused.  _ Mikey… _

He quickly kicked his blankets off and took the bowl with him to the kitchen. He was expecting Mikey to be there, as he usually was, when Donnie wasn’t working with him. Strangely enough though, he wasn’t. Donnie paused in the entryway and glanced over the area. The pieces of the shattered tablet- or, the recoverable pieces- were stacked on a baking sheet on the table. The lights were off, until Donnie moving turned them on again. The dishes from the stew weren’t clean, which was… out of the ordinary.

He set his bowl on the counter distractedly and moved into the lab to see Mikey sitting on the metal table with his back to the entryway. 

“Mikey,” he called, softly, not wanting to scare the robot.

He jumped and turned to look at Donnie, and his stomach dropped.

The plastic in the side of Mikey’s head had been shattered in the impact, and the sensor that was his right eye was dangling by a few cords. The delicate computer parts inside Mikey’s head were exposed, and some appeared to be sparking.

Mikey smiled weakly, and somehow spoke a soft, “hey Don,” in a raspy voice.


	8. /learn

_ Raph flinched back as Donnie tried to press an ice pack to his eye. _

_ “Cut it out, Don! I’m fine!” _

_ “No you’re not,” Donnie insisted, catching his arm and holding him in place. The roadburn extended from Raph’s right cheek bone all the way up to his hairline, and Donnie wanted to make sure it didn’t hurt his eye too badly. _

_ “Stupid rock,” the eight year old muttered, voice wavering a bit. _

_ “You should’ve been watching where you were going,” Donnie responded as he pulled it away to inspect Raph’s eye. “It look like it just got your eyelid.” He pulled some antiseptic wipes out of his first aid kit after pressing the ice pack into Raph’s hand. He turned back to find Raph holding it back to his eye, not meeting Donnie’s gaze. _

 

“You should’ve just come to me,” Donnie murmured as he took a soldering gun to the delicate wires in Mikey’s head.

The robot held himself perfectly still as Donnie worked on repairing the processors. “Yeah, but you were upset, and it was my fault, and then you… it was a combination of things.” He fiddled with his fingers, pinching the small circular knuckles hidden with rubber casing. 

Donnie sighed softly and waved his hand to ward off smoke as he set the gun aside. “... you wanted to know who was in that picture, right?”

Mikey blinked with his one good eye. “Y… yeah. But only if you wanna tell me! I don’t-”

“No, it’s fine.” He picked up some spare plastic pieces. “... it’s about time I started talking about it.”

 

_ “Donnie, that’s amazing!” _

_ Donnie grinned as he watched the drone fly up into the air, close to the ceiling. Leo watched with a wide grin. “How’d you do that?” _

_ “It wasn’t that hard to figure out, after watching all the Empire drones fly above head so much.” _

_ Leo’s smile faltered and he looked at Donnie. “How long have you been watching?” _

_ “Huh?” Donnie looked at him, letting the drone rest on the floor and letting go of the controller. “They’ve been flying for months.” _

_ “... Donnie, can I ask you to do something for me?” _

_ “Well… yeah, sure.” Donnie frowned at him. “Leo, is something wrong?” _

_ The elder brother stepped forward and laid a hand on Donnie’s shoulder. “Just… please stop watching the drones. If you hear them, please come inside.” _

_ “Leo-” _

_ “Would you just do that for me?” _

_ “... yeah. Sure.” _

 

“The one with blue eyes… he’s Leonardo. My oldest brother.”

Mikey looked up at him with his eye as Donnie worked on melting the plastic back in to unify with the rest of his skull. “You have brothers?”

“Yeah. Two. Leonardo and Raphael.”

“And Donatello,” Mikey added.

“... and Michelangelo.”

Mikey looked up at him. “... why’d you name me Michelangelo if I wasn’t your brother?”

 

_ “Not all family has to be related by blood,” Splinter said softly as Donnie watched Raph practice his fighting skills on Casey in the backyard. “But not all blood is family, either.” _

_ “That doesn’t make any sense.” Donnie looked up from his book when the spoken words finally settled in. “You can’t be considered family if you aren’t biologically related.” _

_ “Sometimes, family falls through, and they stop feeling like family.” Splinter looked down at the intelligent child. “You don’t quite feel the same way about them the way you’re supposed to.” _

_ “... but sometimes you can feel that way about people who aren’t related?” _

_ Splinter nodded slowly. “You might not understand now, but someday you will.” _

 

“You were important to me- are important to me.” Donnie looked down at him, straightening up a bit and adjusting the mask keeping the toxic fumes of melting plastic from getting into his lungs. “What the type of importance it is might’ve… changed. But… you’d always meant that much to me.”

Mikey stared at him and Donnie quickly went back to working on the plastic.

 

_ “You what?!” _

_ Raph was shaking in anger as Donnie looked up at his older brothers with a level gaze. _

_ “I’m going to take the offer.” _

_ “Donnie, you have to stay with us-” _

_ “And who said that?” Donnie put his hands on his hips, and Leo looked away. Donnie sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m tired of moving around like this. Having to be on edge all the time- never being able to talk to people.” _

_ “You talk to April all the time,” Raph growled. “Ain’t that enough?” _

_ “I’m going to go work for the Empire.” Donnie shook the letter in his face, and quickly stepped back when Raph tried to grab it. “And you can’t stop me.” _

_ “Donnie-” Leo urged, voice cracking slightly, but Donnie scowled at him before turning away and heading to his room to pack. _

 

“That’s… awful.” Mikey frowned and Donnie jiggled the join that controlled his eyebrows until the second one worked, and adjusted to the new position. “You really…”

“I didn’t leave them right then. And… I gave them a chance to come with me. To get a pardon for rebelling, so they could live with me here, safely. But… they wouldn’t listen.”

“So…”

“So I left. With my fiance, April.”

“April… April O’Neil?”

Donnie nodded slowly as he mended the wires connecting his optic scanners to the processors. 

“The… one killed in the rebellion attack.”

Donnie paused. “... you know about that?”

Mikey shrugged. “I did some digging around in the database.” He stared at his fingers. “So… You… haven’t talked to them lately.”

“Five years.”

“Five-” Mikey finally moved to stare up at him with wide eyes. His damaged eye hadn’t booted back up yet, but Donnie understood the look as incredulous.

“Outside of the people who work above me…” Donnie clenched and unclenched his hands to try and keep them from shaking. “You’re the first person I’ve socialized this much with in five years.”

Mikey stared, before grinning slightly. “Not all that hard to tell, considering how bad at it you are.”

Donnie blinked before scowling and hitting him on the head lightly. “Don’t mock your creator.”

Mikey just giggled.


	9. /erro011100100110010101010010010100100100111101010010

Donnie had fallen into a sense of security with Mikey around. Mikey was a constant- not necessarily a constant Donnie had never had, but a new kind of constant. After all, Donnie had been alone for five years, and he’d gotten used to that. It was hard, but he had.

This transition, getting used to having the company he lacked for so long… it was so much easier to deal with. Mikey was happy, supportive even, a constant light in the lab, and Donnie gave up on trying to complete the project. Mikey was too precious to him to treat like that.

Donnie sat at his computer, staring at all the notes, saved diagnostic files, blueprints, simulations… everything he had saved to his database. He chewed on his pinkie silently before peeling the nail off and spitting it out. He had no need for this information anymore.

He moved to reach for his mouse and delete all the files before a ping he hadn’t heard in months brought up an alarm in the bottom right corner of his screen. Though it had been a long time, he knew exactly what it meant.

He sat up quickly, not daring to make the same mistake again. He brought up the camera feed for the hallway, and his stomach dropped when he saw the camera feed.

A steady stream of soldiers, dressed in rebel outfits, were marching down the hallway, disregarding the security measures and instead taking out the doors with brute force. 

Donnie scrambled away from the computer and quickly pressed a button to shut it down and put up his passwords. He wasn’t about to let the rebellion get to his files.

He shrieked as the door blew down (again, and for a moment he could see the blood stains he  _ couldn’t get off the floor for months _ ) and Mikey appeared in the doorway that connected the lab to the kitchen, eyes blown wide. “Donnie, what-”

“Get back.” Donnie quickly turned and pushed Mikey further into the compound, but Mikey suddenly threw his body weight against Donnie as a stun ray flew past them and hit the wall. 

_ A stun ray? Did they not- _

Donnie didn’t have time to think about that, as the soldiers were pouring into his lab and all he knew was that he needed to get him and Mikey out of there. 

He quickly pushed himself back to his feet once Mikey was off of him and grabbed his arm. “Come on, there’s an escape route further in the compound.”

Mikey looked up at him, clearly wanting to stay and fight, but he resisted Donnie’s bloodthirsty robot coding in favor of letting Donnie push him through into the kitchen, and then towards Donnie’s room. 

“I need to-” Mikey started, but Donnie shushed him as the soldiers ran after them. Mikey looked back over Donnie’s shoulder and his eyes widened. “Donnie-”

“I said s-”

Suddenly Mikey grabbed Donnie’s shoulder and tossed him against the wall. Donnie gasped for air as the wind was knocked from his lungs, but he didn’t have too much time to respond.

“Mik-” He started, but nearly regretted opening his eyes.

Mikey had his hands extended and he was shooting at the soldiers, but in the blink of an eye, an energy bullet flew straight through Mikey’s chest. The robot froze, his shots falling silent as the lights behind his eyes sputtered and then flickered out. The bullet went all the way through him and hit the wall, bringing computer components with it.

“No no NO!” Donnie screamed, lurching forward and grabbing Mikey before he could fall backwards with the force of the bullet. The shots had fallen silent entirely. Donnie quickly clutched Mikey to his chest, pushing the fake hair out of his dead eyes. “Mikey, Mikey  _ please _ answer me, I-... Mikey I can’t lose you too…”

His normally lively, fluid but energy filled limbs were stiff when one of the processors in Mikey’s chest fell dead with the bullet, and all his joints locked in place. Donnie’s chest ached. It was nothing like April’s death, or walking out on Leo and Raph, but it was painful.

There were tears in his eyes when he turned to glare at the rebel soldiers that had done this, and for a moment, he swore they looked… sad.  _ Guilty _ , even.

_ That wasn’t a look they deserved to give him. _

He started to open his mouth and his eyes widened before any of his body registered one of them pointing their gun at him. He looked up at their eyes, and that brown- that chocolate brown-

He  _ knew _ those eyes.

But the stun bullet hit him before he could respond and the edges of his vision faded out with the aching feeling in his chest.


	10. /rerun

The floor was cold and there was a crick in Donnie’s neck when he woke up next. For as messy a sleeper as he was, he’d gotten so accustomed to sleeping in weird places and weird positions… so why was this different?

He sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand before slowly propping himself up on one elbow, looking around at where he was with a weary gaze. It appeared he was in a run down jail cell, maybe part of an abandoned jailhouse. He frowned and sat all the way up. A guard sat against the bars of the cell opposite him, watching him with narrowed eyes as Donnie tried to recall what happened. 

Suddenly, and violently, Donnie lurched forward and grabbed the bars. They rattled loudly, signifying how old they were. “Where the hell am I,” he asked, voice rough. He was thirsty, and his voice felt raw, like he’d been screaming. 

The guard stared at him for a moment. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Donnie scowled and shook the bars again, trying to make more sound, to get the attention of someone who could help him. “Where is Mikey.”

The guard stared, and Donnie tightened his grip on the bars. “Where. Is he.”

The guard stood up and moved towards the end of the hallway and Donnie moved to try and see the door. “Hey! Where the hell are you going? Where is Mikey?  _ Where the hell is my brother?!” _

He didn’t get an answer, and eventually he sagged against the bars, giving into the emotions overwhelming him.

Mikey was dead. There was nothing he could do about it. And his lab had probably been ransacked, destroyed. But it wasn’t like he could just make Mikey like that again. Not exactly the way he had been. He couldn’t make the Mikey he loved. 

The door swung open, but he didn’t lift his head. It didn’t matter.  _ It didn’t matter… _

“D!”

He gasped and jerked his head up, sitting up a bit straighter as Mikey ran forward, gripping the bars. “You’re okay!”

“ _ I’m _ okay?! You got...” Donnie quickly scrambled to his feet and placed his hands over Mikey’s, looking him over. The damage was hidden by a blue shirt, and his eyes were a shade or two duller, his battery not supporting his energetic lifestyle as well as it used to. But he was alive, and Donnie nearly collapsed from relief. 

“Donnie.”

He looked over with wide eyes to see…

… to see Leo standing at the end of the hallway, and Raph standing behind them. Raph looked angry, and… his left arm was gone, replaced by a crude but mobile prosthetic. Donnie knew he could do better, but… some part of him didn’t want to.

“Why’d you shoot Mikey,” he asked, refusing to greet them with normal formalities. They didn’t deserve it, not after what they did.

Leo stared at him, his formerly bright blue eyes, stormy and troubled. He looked at the robot, who stared back with his optic lenses, before looking back at Donnie. “We anticipated defenses. This… was not what we were expecting.”

“His name is Mikey,” Donnie stated coldly. “And you nearly killed him. Just like you killed April.”

“We… what?” Leo stared at him before looking at Raph, whose eyes had gone wide.

“Is that why she wasn’t in the compound?” He asked, voice gruff with what Donnie could only assume was a constant, underlying pain. 

Even after five years, Donnie still knew every single little thing his brothers did when they were nervous, scared, upset- he could read them like open books.

“She  _ died _ . Five years ago. Months after we split. Because a bunch of rebel soldiers stormed the lab and shot her through the head.”

“Actually…” Mikey started, but quickly recoiled when Raph settled his glare on him. Donnie tightened his hold on Mikey’s hands, murmuring a soft reassurance. “... those… they weren’t rebel soldiers, D.”

“... what?”

“They wouldn’t have been,” Leo said insistently, unfolding his arms and letting his arms fall to his sides. “We liked April- she never did anything wrong against us. We had no reason to kill her.”

“This was the first time we’d ever sent soldiers into the capital. An attack like that is way too dangerous,” Raph added. 

“I saw it when I was going through the databases, before I got locked out.” Mikey looked down, not meeting Donnie’s gaze. “It was organized by the Empire. To… eliminate all distractions.”

Donnie stared at Mikey before a blinding rage built up in his chest and he squeezed Mikey’s hands tightly. The robot winced and worked his hands out from under his grip, recoiling. 

“Dammit!” Donnie turned away, pressing his hands to his eyes. “Dammit, dammit,  _ dammit! _ ”

Leo moved closer to the cell. “Donnie-”

“I went five  _ fucking _ years hating you-blaming you for… for  _ everything _ , because I thought.. But I…” The ache in his chest was nothing like he’d felt before. The tears in his eyes stung like nothing ever had before. 

He was only faintly aware of the creaking of the door, or Leo pulling him into a hug, until he wrapped his arms around his brother and sobbed into his shoulder. Leo slowly carded his fingers through Donnie’s unkempt hair. 

“I-I’m so sorry…” Donnie breathed. “I didn’t…”

“You didn’t know,” Leo whispered, rubbing circles in his back with his free hand. “You didn’t know, and that’s okay.”

Donnie pulled away carefully and wiped his eyes on the back of his forearm, sniffing. He looked up to see Raph standing in the entryway, and Mikey still standing on the other side of the bars. 

“... I want them to pay for it,” Donnie said suddenly, voice wavering with thick, heartachingly strong emotion. “I want them to pay for killing her.”

Leo set a hand on his shoulder, looking at him seriously, and for the first time in years, Donnie could see the undying devotion that his older brother had promised- even up to when Donnie stormed out of the house, Leo trusted his decision.

“We’ll make them pay, Donnie,” he breathed, and even Leo’s voice was tight. “I promise.”

Raph nodded. “What do you think we’ve been trying to do for the past five years?”

Donnie stared at him before letting out a weak laugh. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Raph looked him up and down before averting his gaze and holding out his human arm. “C’mere, bro.” 

Donnie stared at him before moving forward and wrapping his arms around him. Raph was well built under his hands, stronger than he’d been since the last time Donnie bothered to give him a hug (he couldn’t even remember, it had been so long). Donnie squeezed him a bit tighter. 

“Alright, alright, let up,” Raph grunted, but Donnie could tell Raph was happy with the sign of affection. The smile wasn’t easy to hide.

Donnie turned to look at Mikey, who stood fiddling with the joints in his fingers. He looked up at Donnie as the scientist extended his arms, and Mikey grinned, running forward and hugging Donnie tightly. 

Leo and Raph watched. “So… who is this?” Leo asked after a moment, and Donnie loosened his grip on him so Mikey could stare at the rebellion leader. “He won’t tell us anything.”

Donnie blinked at Mikey. “I thought you deactivated all my coding.”

Mikey shrugged. “I kept the important stuff, like the interrogation protocols.”

Donnie looked back at Leo. “This is… Project Michelangelo. I call him Mikey. He was my latest weapon, before he… coded himself a sentience.”

“I like to go by Mikey,” the robot interjected suddenly. “And I like to cook, too.”

Donnie squeezed his shoulder. “And… I consider him part of my family.”

Raph sputtered. “You can’t-”

“Any family member of yours is a family member of ours,” Leo said quickly, cutting Raph off.

Mikey grinned widely. “Really?”

Leo shifted his look from Donnie to Mikey, smiling. “Of course.”

Raph threw his hands in the air. “Can’t get a say in anything.”

“So.” Donnie glanced at Raph and then at Leo. “When can we start helping?”

Leo straightened up a bit. “As soon as possible.”

Donnie nodded. “Let’s get started then.”


End file.
